And she had to be careful. More than just a few of the supernaturals were giving her curious looks, and some of their faces wielded expressions that made her uncomfortable, to say the least. She shivered and tried to not let it show.
It seemed to take forever, as matches were scheduled in fifteen-minute intervals. She thought about all the individuals in each of the arenas that must be like this one, and how many dozens of fights must go on in this place. The time crept toward midnight, and she didn’t dare check on the process of her other bets, just in case it dragged down her mood more. If every single one of them had lost, she’d be in an even worse position than when she’d started.
Once a male fae waltzed up to her and tried to chat her up. She brushed off his efforts as gently as possible, and to her relief, he didn’t press the matter and let her go without incident. If he really wanted to press on it, there wasn’t really a whole lot she could do.
Finally, the match she’d been anticipating the most began.
“You all know and love him, please welcome, the Lord of Thunder!” screeched the announcer. The Lord of Thunder prowled into the arena, bare-chested like most of them. He waved, grinned, and his picture was shown on a large screen that everyone could see. His odds flashed on the screen. Two to one. In other words, spend two dollars to win one extra dollar. From her limited understanding, that meant people expected this one to win.
“And now, our newcomer, our mystery card with absolutely no prior fight history, to make this night a little spicier, The Lonely!”
The man who walked in this time did so to far fewer cheers. He wore a white mask that obscured his face. His stature was less bulky than the Lord of Thunder, and his bare chest didn’t boast the same impressive muscles. Sasha’s heart sank a little. It rose, however, when both men morphed into their dragon forms. The Lord of Thunder had a brilliant blue scale pattern with white and yellow splashes, almost like a thunderstorm raging across his skin. He was enormous, with an impressive wingspan that he showed off to the crowd. The Lonely, meanwhile, transformed into possibly the strangest looking dragon Sasha had ever seen.
In fact, his features were so strange and his draconic body so different, a mutter spread through the crowd.
Where the Lord of Thunder stood on all fours, properly bulky, with a long, gleaming tail, The Lonely stood on two powerful legs. An upright dragon, more like a Tyrannosaurus rex, with a slender body atop strong legs. His tail was thick. His arms, sinuous and long, with vicious curling claws. His snout was much thicker than most dragons, and the wings that unfurled from his back seemed less like appendages that could help someone fly and more like additional weapons that could club the living crap out of someone.
“What the hell kind of freak is this?” someone yelled next to her, and similar bays and mocking words rang through the air.
Sasha’s response was to creep closer to the edge of the arena and lean on the barrier that separated the crowd from the fighters.
Well,Sasha thought, examining her fifty-to-one Tyrannosaurus dragon. Ten thousand dollars to win, or two hundred to lose.I guess I know why he calls himself The Lonely.
Chapter Two – Cyrus
He shook off the jeers like water and examined the box seats high above him, the one where he knew his father would be sitting and watching, tucked behind the gaudy curtain.
Listen to them mock me,he thought, knowing that his father likely burned with disgust from what was on display, the same body the man had tried to hide from the rest of their kind.
He could have been a proper Western dragon. Hell, his father wouldn’t have minded if he’d ended up being long and slim like the Eastern ones, with that peculiar organ in their head that enabled them to fly without wings. But not this, not some freak of nature with undeveloped wings and a tree-trunk legs and tail. No one else looked like him. But he was done hiding, done pretending to be anything other than who he was.
His opponent sized him up, and Cyrus felt pleased to note an expression of concern on his face. The Lord of Thunder was used to fighting similarly shaped dragons. Cyrus’ physiology offered a whole new challenge.
He scoured the crowd, wondering which of them had actually bet on him and were now hastening to switch their bets to the Lord of Thunder. One woman leaned on the ledge by the barrier itself, staring at him with an expression he wasnotused to seeing in others. It was fascination. Interest. He focused on her, noting her light-colored hair, round face, and dark clothes. He couldn’t really make out much else.
“Let the fight commence!”
He gave one last glance up to the box seats and allowed a sneer to cover his lips.Watch this, old man.
The Lord of Thunder started the way he customarily did–prowling around his opponent before rearing onto his hind legs and spreading out his wings to impress the watching crowd.
That was the moment when Cyrus pounced. The awesome strength in his legs allowed him to cross the distance in a few bounds, and his long arms grasped the Lord of Thunder. Taken off-balance, it only took using a human martial arts move to cause the Lord to come crashing down to the ground. From there, an easy sweep with Cyrus’ huge snout, and his powerful jaws locked around the longer neck of the dragon below him.
The Lord of Thunder bellowed in surprise and rage and thrashed, but Cyrus chomped down, feeling scales crack under the pressure. He heard cries of anger from the crowd before a sudden silence. as the Lord refused to concede defeat. He tried a roll, but Cyrus refused to budge. The silence grew more pronounced as it sunk into the crowd that their hero couldn’t win.
The moment stretched on until three rapid tail thumps signaled Cyrus’ victory. He let go, and the Lord of Thunder gasped, drawing in air, teeth bared in pain. He glared at Cyrus with disgust and fury, and Cyrus simply stepped away. The crowd remained silent. Most of them had lost money, maybe even his precious father up there in his little box, looking down on everything.
He morphed back into his human form, complete with the mask, and strode off into the dark tunnel, listening to the annoyed yelps of the crowd. At least one or two lucky souls out there might have bet on him and won.
As expected, after a fae medic checked him over and he ventured to leave, his father came down to see him. Well rather, his father summoned minions, who in turn escorted him to his father’s office. Torag Graywing didn’t have much in the way of facial expressions other than stern and angry. Cyrus could count on one hand the number of times he had seen his father smile. His mother as well; she was proud and smug about being married to his father. They were the perfect couple but not perfect parents.
Out of Cyrus’ five siblings, two were women who got married off the moment they could cement alliances, one died under mysterious circumstances, one sister lived with him, so she didn’t have to be married to whom their parents picked for her, and the last, his older brother, Zaak… well, he was a daddy’s boy, all right.
“How dare you show yourself in my club?” Torag snarled, staring at his unmasked son. “First, you disappear for months without responding to anything and then you have the audacity tosign up as a fighter in my own club?” Torag looked as if he was about to explode with fury as his minions looked on impassively, ready for any sort of aggressive movements from Cyrus.
“Caused quite the stir, didn’t it? No one was expecting a dragon to look like that. And win.”
His father took a few deep breaths. “You’ve pissed off a lot of people tonight. Most people were anticipating the Lord of Thunder to win. And how the hell did you even learn to fight like that, anyway?”